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578
THE HUMAN REMAINS
PhoteiniJ. P McGeorge
PHILIP P. BETANCOURT ET AL.
The aim of this preliminary report is to give an outline of work in progress
on the human remains from the Hagios Charalambos cave, a large and
unusually well preserved collection of mainly Early Minoan to Middle
Minoan date. The cranial series reveals a remarkable number of head
traumas - contradicting a long-held view that the Minoans were innocent
pacifists
- and three examples of trephination (surgical removal of a portion
of the skull), which are highlighted here because they are the earliest and
technically most sophisticated examples of this kind of cranial surgery so
far encountered in Greece.
The cave ossuary was used for the secondary burial of human skeletal
remains that are dated by associated pottery and other artifacts, presented
above. The finds range in date from the Final Neolithic to the Late Minoan
period, but the bulk of the pottery dates to EM III-MM IIB, which may
indicate that there was a peak in the growth of the population of the area at
this time. The few LM sherds found in the upper rooms are probably not
associated with the deposition of the bones. The secondary nature of the
deposition is proved both by the disarticulated condition of the bones and
by the fact that some bones were carefully placed in a lattice arrangement
(see above, Fig. 5), which is without parallel at this period. In the lower
levels of room 5, the bones were mixed with soil. All of the soil deposit was
water-sieved, primarily with the aim of retrieving small bones and teeth;
the sieving took over a year to complete but was repaid not only with bone
material, but with many interesting small finds such as beads, gold foil,
and a prismatic seal.
Burial Treatment
Burial customs in EM Crete are diverse and may reflect variations in religious
beliefs. The custom of inhumation burial in caves (sometimes also
used for habitation), in rock shelters, or in natural rock fissures is known
from the Neolithic and Early Minoan periods, while secondary burial -
usually in built ossuaries - is known at numerous Minoan sites.115
At Hagios Charalambos there is no evidence that primary burial took
place in the cave. The burials are all secondary. No discrete burials were
recognized during excavation. Although cases of articulated vertebrae were
noted, this situation indicates the incomplete decomposition of some skeletons
at the time of secondary burial. Also, some instances of fused vertebrae
caused by pathologies were encountered (Fig. 18). Apart from these cases,
there is a very slim possibility of identifying bones belonging to a single
individual among the vast quantities of commingled bone material. One
exception, for self-evident reasons, was the post-excavation identification
of the lower limb bones (femurs and tibias) of a pituitary dwarf. With few
exceptions, each bone has to be treated as a separate individual.
It is hypothesized that the human remains were transferred to the cave
in MM IIB, on one or possibly two occasions separated by a brief interval of
time. Not only adults, but also infants and children of all ages are included
115. For example, see Dawkins
1900-1901; Duckworth 1902-1903;
van Effenterre 1948; van Effenterre and
van Effenterre 1963.